Last year, we made our own Advent Calendars. I posted about that here. And if you click on the Scribd button in the sidebar, I have posted it for you to print. Just think of it as an early Christmas gift!
Nov 28, 2009
Nov 25, 2009
Fall 09 Exams: part two
He sailed to America. He sailed to where he thought was where America was, but actually it was where the Indians were, and he called it the Indies. He was before the Pilgrims. When he was a boy, he wanted to be a sailor. On his trip, there was a storm and sometimes they ran out of food, so they probably had to borrow food from other ships.
They sailed to America so that they can have freedom. They created the first Thanksgiving to celebrate what God done for them on their trip. They came to America for freedom, and they sailed on the Mayflower. And in America, they met Squanto, Massasoit, and I don’t remember the others. Massasoit was an Indian chief. Squanto was the only one that was alive who cleared the land after the terrible plague. When their harvest was plentiful, they decided to have a harvest feast.
He was the ship’s captain’s appearance. (I asked, "Are you sure about that?" "Definitely." She said.)
Tell the story of John Smith and Pocahontas.
One time, he was caught by the Indians, well, that was the first time. But he escaped, and then he got caught the second time, when he probably fell in one of their traps. And they took John Smith to Powhatan. He asked questions. And they nearly killed him, but Pocahontas, Powhatan’s daughter went and gathered his head in her arms and Powhatan proclaimed him as his brother.
Kaytie's music, grammar, and writing questions:
Who wrote the music we have listened to all term?
John Bach
What is the definition of a noun?
The definition of a pronoun is: a pronoun is a word that you use in place of a noun.
Me, my, mine, and (this one gave her trouble, I told her, “Answer this questions in a complete sentence: 'Who are you?' which was all she needed to remember it.) I
A verb is a word that links two verbs together, does an action, and helps another verb.
I love giraffes.
Giraffes is the noun. I is also a noun. Love is the verb. I is a pronoun.
She did well with this, but I had to sound out the words love and giraffe for her.
She did well. We need to work on the spelling of the last name, and writing words backwards.
What is the most interesting thing you have learned in History?
About the Pilgrims because they were the first people to find America. (I did ask, before I could stop myself, “What about Columbus?” His answer, "Columbus was the first to find Central America, there is a difference." And I figured he had a point, so I left him alone.)
Columbus sailed… he was the first one to find Haiti. And he sailed across the sea to Haiti and he thought he was in Spain, but he wasn’t. He was trying to find gold and silver.
They found America. They were the first to have the Thanksgiving feast. They met some friendly Indians. They came here on the Mayflower, which was a ship. There was a few storms.
Nate's music, grammar and writing questions:
I forgot. (He only asked every. single. day. for three months: "Who wrote that music?" And he still doesn't know.)
He did not ask for help, except to have me repeat his sentence for him a couple of times.
Nov 23, 2009
Examinations for Fall Term 09
We are ending our school term with Mason-style exams. I have never done this before, and I really had no idea how it would go. Today, we did Bible and Geography, because we have basically finished those subjects, at least enough for them to answer the questions I had written. I started with Kaytie and she did very well. For their narrations, I typed as they talked and just put down exactly what they said. I did not correct even the most glaring of errors.
Exam questions for term one: Kaytie
Bible:
Retell in your own words the story of Joseph.
She did this perfectly!
Find three countries that we have studied on the map, and tell me three facts about each country.
United States:
1 The flag has red stripes, white stars and a blue square that the stars are on.
2 The bald eagle is the symbol.
3 There is very many houses, and most people aren’t very poor.
Mexico:
1 The kids play soccer, but instead of calling it soccer, they call it futbol.
2 The capital is Mexico City.
3 The flag is green, white and red. There is an eagle that caught a fish.
1 They grow Brazil nut trees.
2 They grow oranges.
3 Its capital is Brazilia.
She got them all easily except for Argentina. But she remembered it when she saw it on a map.
The United States because it is a free country.
Exam questions for term one: Nate
Retell in your own words the story of Joseph.
(This was difficult. I had to ask a lot of, "What happened then?" And at one point (right after the first sentence) I had to get very explicit: This can be a fight, which you will lose, or you can answer the question pleasantly and tell me what you remember, because I know you remember something.)
He got a new coat. His brothers didn’t like his dreams. His brothers threw him in a pit. And when his father found out, he cried. They gave him to some people going to Egypt. Potiphar threw him in jail. He helped two other people by explaining their dreams. The dreams were… the first one was the cupbearer was balancing three baskets on his head and birds were eating off the first one. It meant that Potiphar was going to stick a pole through him. The other guy got out of jail. Joseph helped Pharaoh, explained his dreams. His dreams meant that there was going to be seven years of food and seven years of bad food. Pharaoh let him out of jail. Joseph had a party because he got out of jail. He told them to collect one fourth of grain.
He said the first verse, then grabbed a few phrases.
He mixed two up, but got the others perfectly.
He found them all easily.
United States
The flag has stars and stripes.
Canada
They eat popovers.
Brazil
They grow brazil nuts.
Argentina because of how they talk.
From this exercise, I drew the following conclusions.
1. Five years old is a little young for narrations: especially for boys.
2. We need to spend a lot more time on our Scripture memory. I think next term we will say the entire passage every time instead of trying to work on one verse a week.
3. Kids have really good memories! And this method is kind of fun for everybody but five-year-old boys!
Daybook: Thanksgiving week

Nov 19, 2009
Our New Four-Year Old
Nov 17, 2009
Pattern Blocks
Pattern blocks are some of our favorite manipulatives. And over the years, we have used them in many different ways. The kids like to build with them, make pictures with them, and just generally free play with them.
This year, so far, we have used them to make pictures to copy.![]()
We have practiced graphing with them.
We have used them to play roll-a-dice games.
We have cards that go with them, and we have copied the pictures both on and off the cards.
Off is a little more challenging, but do-able.
The next step up from pattern blocks is tanagrams. These are much more challenging, since the kids have to find, not just a triangle, but a triangle of the correct size, and then have to figure out how to place it in the picture correctly. Kaytie built this boat three times before she finally got it to look like the guide.
Nov 13, 2009
Totschool in the fall
These past couple of weeks, Totschool has been all about the ABCs and fall/pumpkins.
Abbie has been playing with letters. She likes to sort them by color.
She has also started sorting them by letter. She doesn’t know what the letters are called, but she knows she likes things to match, so she sorts out matches wherever she can find them.
She somewhat enjoys these ABC puzzles. I kept seeing these cool wooden puzzles all over the place, but I dislike buying things that aren’t multi-purpose. I finally had the idea to make them myself. I printed them on cardstock and added magnets to the back for extra fun, and to keep the puzzles together a little better.
She practiced her handwriting with our Before You Print wipe-off book.They LOVE this.
She sorted pumpkins by size. (These also have magnets on the back.)
She poked old cupcake decorations (pumpkins) into a styrofoam block.
She swept up pompoms.
She stacked pegs, and, of course, sorted them by color.
She built a pumpkin.
And stamped numbers. This was a challenge at first, but then she realized she was just matching,!
For more Totschool posts, go to Carissa's blog.
Phonics update
Along with the board, I put two erasers, which I got for the little kids when school started. The big kids got some, too, but they use theirs, and so they aren't in very good condition anymore. We also had a die, which they rolled, and we counted out the correct spaces and mentioned which number they landed on.


























